John Conness, 1821-1909
No. 22387 John Conness
From bioguide.congress.gov
Senate Years of Service: 1863-1869
Party: Republican
Conness, John, a Senator from California; born in Abbey, County Galway, Ireland, September 22, 1821; immiagrated to the United State in 1833; learned the art of pianoforte making in New York; moved to California in 1849 and engaged in mining and mercantile pursuits; member, State assembly 1853-1854, 1860-1861; unsuccessful candidate for Governor of California in 1861; elected as a Douglas Democrat to the United States Senate, afterwards changed to a Union Republican, and served from March 4, 1863, to March 3, 1869; chairman, Committee on Mining (Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses); moved to Boston, Mass., in 1869; retired from active business pursuits; died in Jamaica Plain, Mass., January 10, 1909; interment in Cedar Grove Cemetery, Dorchester, Mass
From an article about John Conness in The Boston Globe, May 7, 1903, we learn that Conness rebuilt the house at 255 River Street. Therefore, we do not what it looked like prior to the Conness years.
No. 11413 Photograph of the Conness house, Boston Public Library (circa 1906)
Born in County Galway, Ireland in 1821, John Conness immigrated to the United States in 1836, at the age of 15, and worked in New York for more than a decade. Along with many others, he was attracted to California by the lure of the 1849 gold rush. He established a stake and later operated a store selling supplies to miners. Elected to the California State Assembly in the 1853-54 and 1860-61 sessions, in 1859, Conness was nominated as the Democratic candidate for lieutenant govern and as the Union Democratic candidate for governor in the 1861 election. After losing to John G. Downey in the first instance and to Leland Stanford in the second, Conness was chosen by the legislature to fill the full term of United States Senator from California for the term beginning in 1863. He served until 1869.
Conness earned President Abraham Lincoln’s respect. The two men worked together on legislation to protect Yosemite National Park and Mariposa Grove. In addition, Conness gave support to Lincoln’s war measures. Lincoln once said of Conness that he “is habitually careful not to say what he does not know,” and described him on another occasion as “one of our United States Senators, of high standing, whom I cheerfully endorse.”
Conness was with Senators William M. Stewart of Nevada and Charles Sumner of Massachusetts the night Lincoln died. “Upon hearing of the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward, the three men ran to Seward’s lodgings. There they were turned away by a doctor who was attending to Seward, and they ran to the White House, where they heard the news that Lincoln had been shot. Conness declared that ‘this is a conspiracy to murder the entire cabinet’ and directed soldiers to go protect Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.” Conness had the honor of being a pallbearer at Lincoln’s funeral on April 19, 1865.[1]
John’s first wife, Charlotte, died in 1866. They had had four children together, none of whom seem to have ever lived in Dorchester. On March 16, 1869, John Conness married for his second wife Mary Russell Davis, 22, in Greenfield, Massachusetts. The fact that her family was living in Massachusetts probably influenced their move to Dorchester. The deed to Mary gave her address as New York City, undoubtedly a temporary home they had chosen while deciding where to live after John’s senate term ended in December 1869. As mentioned, on August 23, 1870, Mary Conness, of New York, John’s wife, bought the house at 255 River Street.
The 1880 U.S. Census listed the occupants of the house:
John Conness, 58, farmer
Mary R. Conness, 33, keeping house
Irwin M. D. Conness, 10, at school
Maria L. Conness, 9, at school
Thornton D. Conness, 6, at school
William C. Conness, 4, at school
Edith F. Conness, 1, at school [sic]
David F. Conness 2 months
Norah Quirk, 28, servant
Belle McLane, 30, servant
Catherine Munroe, 18, servant
John and Mary’s son, Irwin, was born in New York and would have been a new-born when Mary bought the property. Given that the family made repairs to the house before moving in, Irwin was probably between six and twelve months old at the time they came to Dorchester. Maria was born on River Street on June 24, 1871. For the children, this would be the only home they would know. Another son, Leland Stanford Conness, was born in 1880. In all, John and Mary would have ten children; one daughter, Ella, lived only two years, dying in 1874.
No. 5302 John Conness and children outside at the property on River Street. Photograph is at the Dorchester Historical Society, but it is probably a copy from a negative at Historic New England. The note on the back refers to John Conness in Paradise. We don’t know if that was a general term or if it may have been a name Conness used for his estate.
The first representation of the house on a map is on the 1858 map of Norfolk County.
Mary and John each acquired more land on the north side of River Street adjacent to the parcel where the house at 255 River Street was located. By 1872, Mary had increased the size of her real estate to 22 acres with purchases of land from the Capen family, and that is the 22-acre parcel with owner John Conness shown in the 1874 atlas on the previous page. Mary later increased the area by another 10,000 square feet with further purchases from the Capen family. In 1874, John Conness bought seven acres from Aaron D. Capen. In 1877 and 1885, he bought two parcels of land totaling 752,702 square feet, a portion from the Clapp family and a portion from the Capen family.
In 1905, a local newspaper article described the house and grounds on the north side of River Street and mentioned forty-six varieties of grape grown on the property.
By 1905, John Conness’s health had declined to the point where he was unable to attend a meeting of the New England California Pioneers, a group of which he had been an active member for many years. (Boston Globe, October 25, 1905). He suffered from dementia, and by 1906, a guardian had been appointed for him. That year, negotiations were underway to sell the Conness estate on the north side of River Street to the City of Boston, for use as a “consumptives’ hospital,” an institution that would later become the Mattapan Chronic Disease Hospital.
In 1906, the City of Boston acquired the Conness land north of River Street for the construction of a Consumptives Hospital. Mary Conness sold the real estate she owned, and Frank Wood, guardian of John Conness, also sold John’s real estate north of River Street to the City of Boston
Guide to Research Collections
Henry E. Huntington Library
San Marino, CA
Papers: 8 items (1863-1891) in various collections.
University of California, Berkeley
Bancroft Library
Berkeley, CA
Papers: Letters and photographs in several collections.
University of Rochester
Rush Rhees Library
Rochester, NY
Papers: 5 letters by and 2 to Conness (1864-1868) in various collections. Finding aid.
[1] text is from Wikipedia referencing Robert Denning. “A fragile machine: Calkifornia senator John Conness.” California History. volume 85, issue 4 (January 2008)